The present disclosure relates to an image displaying apparatus, an image displaying system, an image displaying method and an image displaying program.
In the past, there was known an image displaying system making use of a plurality of network cameras. In such a system, a plurality of images are generally displayed on a multi-image screen so that the user is capable of confirming the images. Thus, when the user images a moving object by carrying out pan and/or tilt operations, the user confirms the moving body displayed on the multi-image screen so that the user is capable of carrying out the pan and/or tilt operations while switching a controlled camera from one to another. In the following description, the pan and/or tilt operations are also referred to simply as pan/tilt operations.
With the resolution getting finer and the frame rate becoming higher, however, the amount of data of an image unit also increases. If the amount of data in an image unit increases, it is desirable to reduce the amount of data of the entire image due to a limit of the data transmission capacity and a limit of the data processing performance. Thus, in order to be able of confirming a plurality of images at the same time, it is important to adopt a good method for displaying the images and reduce the amount of data of all the images. Documents such as Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2008-205700 disclose a technology for displaying an image taken by making use of a camera being controlled at a high frame rate and for displaying images taken by making use of cameras other than the controlled camera at a low frame rate.
If a plurality of images are displayed on a small-size multi-image screen of an image displaying apparatus such as a portable phone or a portable information terminal, however, the degree of easiness to confirm the displayed images and the degree of easiness to carry out the pan/tilt operations undesirably decrease. It is thus important to show images without regard to images appearing on the multi-image screen and without lowering the degree of easiness to carry out the pan/tilt operations.